Abstract

Objective— Childhood obesity strongly predisposes to some adult diseases. Recently, genome-wide association (GWA) studies in Caucasians identified multiple single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) associated with body mass index (BMI) and obesity. The associations of those SNPs with BMI and obesity among other ethnicities are not fully described, especially in children. Among those previously identified SNPs, we selected six SNPs (rs7138803, rs1805081, rs6499640, rs17782313, rs6265, and rs10938397, in or near obesity-related genes FAIM2, NPC1, FTO, MC4R, BDNF, and GNPDA2, respectively) because of the relative high minor allele frequencies in Chinese, and tested the associations of the SNPs with BMI and obesity in Chinese children.

Research design and methods— We investigated the associations of these SNPs with BMI and obesity in school aged children. A total of 3503 children participated in the study, including 1229 obese, 655 overweight, and 1619 normal weight children (diagnosed by the Chinese age- and sex-specific BMI cutoffs).

Results— After age and sex adjustment and correction for multiple testing, the SNPs (rs17782313, rs6265, and rs10938397) were associated with BMI (P = 1.0×10−5, 0.038, and 0.00093, respectively), and also obesity (P = 5.0×10−6, 0.043, and 0.00085, respectively) in the Chinese children. The SNPs (rs17782313 and rs10938397) were also significantly associated with waist circumference, waist-to-height ratio and fat mass percentage.

Conclusions— Results of this study support obesity-related genes in adults as important genes for BMI variation in children, and suggest that some SNPs identified by GWA studies in Caucasians also confer risk for obesity in Chinese children.